Awareness and Adoption Behavior of Vegetable Farmers on Safe Pesticide Handling Practices

Abstract

The study was executed in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu by selecting 4 major vegetable-producing blocks, 100 vegetable farmers have been drawn proportionately and the data were gathered using a wellstructured and pre-tested interview schedule and analyzed using SPSS software. The study aims at assessing and comparing the awareness and adoption levels of vegetable farmers regarding safe pesticide handling practices. Among the selected vegetable farmers, a majority (73%) of the vegetable farmers have a medium level of awareness about safe pesticide handling practices. At the same time, majority (51%) of the vegetable farmers have a low level of adoption. It can be interpreted from the study that most vegetable farmers were aware, but they were not properly adopting safe pesticide handling practices.